The Kindness Of Strangers

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

-- Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

"A kind lady lives here" hobo sign, 8-3-14

"Today, give a stranger one of your smiles.

It might be the only sunshine he sees all day."

-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

On my bike ride yesterday I got caught in a pretty terrible storm.

Usually I keep riding through whatever Mother Nature flings at me. But yesterday, she flung me right off the road into someone's front yard. Another rider, a guy named Terry, saw me turn in and followed me.

The storm didn't look like it was going to give up anytime soon, and the two of us found meager, inadequate shelter under a big tree and cowered there together, dripping and shivering, while the hostile rain, hail, wind and lighting raged around us.

After a little while, someone appeared in the doorway of the little green house next door -- a young woman -- waving at us to come over.

This kind young lady invited us into her house bikes and all. A little girl, talkative and friendly as hell, bounced and skipped gaily towards us announcing "It's so nice to help people!" and handed us dry towels.

A tow-headed toddler watched warily from the next room.

The lovely, kind young lady and the adorable, bubbly little girl chatted with us until the storm finally eased up enough for Terry to get back on the road and my husband came to rescue me.

As it turned out, the kind lady's husband also rides, so she understood the plight of two stranded cyclists sidelined by a storm, and took compassion on us.

I was freezing by the time my husband arrived with his truck to drive me and my dripping bike home. My hands were numb. My feet were numb. But my heart was warmed by the kind gesture from a total stranger.

I don't like to stop riding if I don't absolutely have to.

I absolutely had to.

It's a good thing I stopped where I did.



*A note about today's picture:

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, out-of-work homeless men called hobos were a common sight jumping on and off freight trains and traveling on foot along America's railroad tracks. To communicate with others in "the brotherhood," hobos devised a clever set of symbols -- simple rudimentary icons drawn in chalk or coal on sidewalks or mailboxes, etc. -- to inform, help, warn, encourage and guide one another on their travels from town to town. This simple cat drawn outside a home indicated that "a kind lady lives here."

I Found My Mitten

"The three little kittens, they lost their mittens,

And they began to cry,

Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear,

That we have lost our mittens.

What! Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens!

Then you shall have no pie."

-- Eliza Lee Cabot Follen, 

"The Three Little Kittens, They Lost Their Mittens," 

New Nursery Songs For All Good Children (1843)

Self portrait 6-5-14

OK, so I'm not exactly a kitten, and I didn't exactly lose a mitten.

I lost a glove.

It was one of my cycling gloves from my favorite pair. They're the only gloves I have that fit my paws just exactly how I like them to fit.

When one of them went missing a couple of weeks ago, I was very, very sad.

Sad is bad.

I searched and searched for my little lost glove, but alas, I couldn't find it.

In the meantime, I wore other gloves -- gloves that don't fit my paws just exactly how I like them to fit.

When my wayward glove finally turned up in a drawer today, trapped inside a tangle of cycling tights and shorts and jackets, it made me very, very happy. 

Happy is good.

Also, I think now I get pie.